Kidnapped Canadian journalist kept in Afghan cave

Reuters Staff

2 Min Read

<p>Freed Canadian journalist Mellissa Fung (L) is seated next to Amrullah Saleh, the head of the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), after being released in Kabul, November 8, 2008.Intelligence Service Office Handout</p>

KABUL (Reuters) - Afghan kidnappers kept a Canadian journalist captive in a cave for four weeks before she was freed, the woman said in comments released on Sunday.

Mellissa Fung, a journalist with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp in Afghanistan, was freed on Saturday after being kidnapped a month ago near the capital, Kabul.

In a video handout by Afghanistan's intelligence agency, which secured her release, Fung, wearing an army camouflage jacket, also said she had her hands and legs chained during her last week of detention in Maidan Wardak province just southwest of Kabul.

Fung was abducted by armed men at a refugee camp on the outskirts of Kabul on October 12 and taken to the mountains west of the city, the CBC network said in a statement.

Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous nations in the world for reporters, has seen a spike in assassinations and kidnappings of foreigners in recent months.

The intelligence department said Fung was freed without any ransom, but did not say whether her abductors were members of a criminal group or Taliban insurgents who have also been behind many kidnappings in Afghanistan in recent years.

Three men were arrested in the raid, but one of the ring-leaders had fled abroad, an intelligence official said.

A female Dutch journalist abducted last week from an eastern part of the capital was freed few days later, but a French male aid worker kidnapped last week from a relatively secure part of Kabul is still missing.